Crazy Bush-Week

This week is Bush-week, which is the orientation week for the second semester. For some odd reason, the Bush-week this year is held on the second week instead of the first. Their orientation is quite different from NUS's. It is less organised: instead of the proper groups and activities all day sort of stuff you'd find in NUS, it's more like a random collection of activities over the week which anyone can participate if they want. It is also different in the way that it has very few participants and a lot of spectators, who happened to pass-by or have just finished their lessons. And most markedly different is that it is extremely wild and crazy, to the extent that it makes SOW looks as tame as an earthworm.

I haven't been paying attention to the ongoings of Bush-week, knowing that I would not like them at all, but today I happen to be in the Union Court (the central area of ANU very much like the Central Forum in NUS) for other stuff, and there were some Bush-week activity going on. I didn't really pay attention since I was doing something else, but I noticed that it has only a handful of participants - say, maybe ten? - and a whole lot of spectators (at least two hundred) since it's lunch time.

But really, it's difficult not to notice what they were doing, since they were in a rather visible area and there were speakers projecting the emcees' voices. One of the activities the participants were supposed to do was to compete to see who can give the best haircut to their team members in one minute. Yep, so they really started cutting off their team members' hair.

If that's not bad enough, then this is: I was not paying attention to what's going on, but a guy (perhaps out of a challenge or a forfeit) stripped naked and ran to the street about 300 metres away and back. Yes. Completely naked. Under the eyes of hundreds of people.

Perhaps this is normal in Australia. Perhaps not. But it does make the supposedly crazy stuff I did in SOW look mild, isn't it? Then again, I suppose different orientation caters to different people. I mean, I doubt there would be someone in NUS who would, even if it's not illegal, go naked under so many eyes.

Maybe not.